RPW package on Solar Orbiter

Mission Overview

Solar Orbiter is one of three candidates for the ESA's M-class mission in Cosmic Visions programme 2015-2025.

Solar Orbiter aims to answer following fundamental questions in solar hand heliospheric physics

• How and where do the solar wind plasma and magnetic field originate in the corona?
• How do solar transients drive heliospheric variability?
• How do solar eruptions produce energetic particle radiation that fills the heliosphere?
• How does the solar dynamo work and drive connections between the Sun and the heliosphere?

To answer these questions, it is essential to make in-situ measurements of the solar wind plasma, fields, waves, and energetic particles close enough to the Sun. This is one of the fundamental drivers for the Solar Orbiter mission, which will approach the Sun to within 0.25 AU.

RPW instrument package

Radio and Plasma Waves (RPW) consortium proposes a sophisticated plasma/radio wave receiver system, including high sensitivity electric and magnetic sensors. Since the receiver system covers a very wide frequency range (near-DC to 20MHz for electric, and ~0.1Hz to 500kHz for magnetic), different kinds of sensors are used for the measurements.

The package consists of following sub-systems:

• Electric antenna (ANT), consisting on a set of three monopoles and the
• Magnetic search-coil (SCM)
• BIAS unit.
• Low Frequency Receiver (LFR)
• Time Domain Sampler (TDS)
• Thermal Noise and High Frequency Receiver (TNR/HFR)
• Nominal and redundant power supply named LVPS (Low-Voltages Power Supply)
• Power Distribution Unit (PDU)
• Nominal and redundant Data Processing Unit (DPU)

LVPS-PDU

The Low Voltages Power Supply provides the low-voltages for supplying the RPW sub units during normal operations, it is a commonly shared resource within RPW sub-units. From the primary power provided by the spacecraft, the LVPS produces all the secondary voltages for RPW functioning. LVPS insures the power interface with the S/C and it shall provide the total power required for operations of the complete RPW instrument. LVPS secondary voltages are distributed to sub-units through the Power Distribution Unit (PDU).

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